


A Kiss Will Do

by Arrestzelle



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Childhood Friends, Conflict, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Reise Reise Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrestzelle/pseuds/Arrestzelle
Summary: Flake is having troubles with his current girlfriend. Paul is there to help him through it.
Relationships: Paul Landers/Christian Lorenz
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	A Kiss Will Do

**Author's Note:**

> This is [Reise Reise](https://66.media.tumblr.com/c434d29e294a0f9749fd54779564364b/3fb6a65f70c9ad72-0f/s400x600/b28b3fc90096064747a09c565c4457759884c4ef.jpg) [era](https://66.media.tumblr.com/3a4a6ef87cc027c67ac8d04c8876d7f1/3fb6a65f70c9ad72-da/s540x810/00027b7022e4ab4011c3732d97d92d50703aabf3.jpg).

_Kill Bill_ plays, forgotten, on the TV. Flake is splayed back, hair strewn wildly, his broad hands folded together neatly atop his naked stomach. He’s watching the fan spin above him. Paul is sitting cross-legged against the headboard, haphazardly cradling three pages of a handwritten letter.

“ _Dearest Flake_ ,” Paul begins in an exaggerated feminine drawl, unraveling his legs to stretch them out, framing Flake’s laying form, “I yearn to caress your luscious locks, to run my fingers through them from root to tip. I, too, wish to stroke your throbbing cock from root to tip! But that is awfully bold of me to say, isn’t it? Yet, my sweet Flake, you seem like a man who needs a bold woman!”

“It does _not_ say that!” Flake protests, throwing himself up onto an elbow, looking back at his grinning friend with a furrowed brow and flushing cheeks. Paul chuckles and strokes a thumb along the overabundance of heart stickers lining the side of the page. He flicks through the three pages and says lightly, “Nah, it’s much more thoughtful than that. Nothing embarrassing. Quite sweet, actually. This is definitely one you should keep.”

Flake guffaws. He flops back down, his lengthy hair laying across Paul’s shin. He stares distantly at the TV screen, seeing but unseeing the excessive gore and blood.

“I assume you keep all of yours. Even the ones that talk about extreme sexual encounters.”

“Those are the best ones!” Paul remarks, nudging the other man with his foot, “They crack me up!”

Flake smiles faintly.

“What about the one that involves a diaper and laxatives?”

“What about it?” Paul muses. Flake snorts. He pauses when he feels Paul shift, and then a pair of pursed lips kiss him soundly on the forehead, an obnoxious wet sound joining the screaming of Japanese gangsters. Flake cranes his head back to see Paul looking down at him with a smile on his boyish face. His eyes are bearing that fond look, like Paul could just make him _melt_ from a gaze alone. His crow’s feet are at full power, cheeks pleasantly round. Flake blushes.

“What?” he sputters. Paul doesn’t say anything. Flake stares up at him, watching blankly as Paul reaches over to gently remove his glasses. He sets them aside. Those hands made calloused by his guitar playing cup under his jaw, holding him still, while he leans back in to kiss Flake right on the lips—upside down. Flake makes a rather unattractive grunt of surprise, his hands unfolding, flying up from his stomach to pause at the halfway point to Paul, hovering. Paul’s lips are dry but _warm,_ pursing against his tenderly. Flake closes his eyes, his eyebrows knitting together. Regathering himself, Flake begins kissing him back.

Their mouths are slotted together at a strange angle considering their position. Paul is missing half of Flake’s mouth, his top lip kissing the skin right under Flake’s bottom lip rather effectively. The kiss becomes sloppy and unnecessarily lengthy. Paul’s kissing is typically much better than this—he’s obviously intentionally being idiotic. As usual. He leaves Flake’s mouth area a slobbery mess by the time he pulls back with a grin on his face.

Grimacing, Flake reaches up to scrape his mouth off onto his wrist. Paul looks rather pleased with himself.

“Thank you,” Flake sarcastically states, the _‘danke’_ flat and dry. Paul chuckles. He begins threading his fingers through Flake’s long hair from underneath, starting at the nape of his neck, raking them upwards and then out, his black painted fingernails peeking through his russet brown locks. Flake’s eyes become hooded and content, trained on the TV screen once again. Paul is thoughtfully silent for a minute, and Flake can sense the question before it’s spoken.

“Have you heard from Jenny?” Paul asks. Flake’s slight smile falters.

“Yes, but I’d rather not talk about it and ruin this perfectly pleasant moment.”

“Ah, alright,” Paul says, voice light and understanding. “Instead, if you’d like, I could kiss you again. This time, I’ll be chivalrous, I promise. ”

“Smooth,” Flake says dryly, fingers tightening from where they rest against his bare sides, “A nice transition from discussing my troubles with my girlfriend.”

“There was no discussion,” Paul remarks sharply like the crack of a whip but within a controlled demeanor, fingers never once faltering in their mission to card through Flake’s hair, “And I am more than fine with comforting you through other ways. I just know you. I know you enjoy intimacy.”

Silence reclaims its place. Flake is tense following that exchange. Paul lets out a deep exhale, Flake hears. He closes his eyes. He calmly refolds his hands together atop his belly, listening to the movie and the turning of the fan above them. Paul continues stroking his fingers through his hair. Unease sits like a weight in Flake’s stomach. He knows he needs to say something to break the tension.

Maybe intimacy wouldn’t hurt. Flake doesn’t like feeling as if he’s being childish—and Paul makes him feel that way often, though he can’t blame him. He doesn’t particularly care to kiss for the sake of masking his unhappiness and mistakes, but when it came to Paul, he often swayed whichever way the wind blew.

“Alright, fine,” he mutters, “Kiss me.”

Paul scoffs.

“Forget it, if you’re going to act like it’s a chore.”

Throat constricting, Flake swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. Opening his eyes, he stares up at the spinning ceiling fan. His heart begins to race, thudding nervously in the cage of his chest. His eyes flare up, burning, agitated by the tightening of his throat. How does he always mess everything up?

“Mm… M-Maybe,” Flake begins, shakily stammering, and already regrets it before he even finishes saying it, “You should find other ways to comfort me… That isn’t easiest for _you.”_

Then he moves to sit up, feeling raw and agitated. Paul’s fingers slip from his hair. Flake can’t even look at him. Anxiety drives the knife into his stomach, twisting the blade as he absconds through the bedroom door, to get a breath of fresh air.

“Running as always!” Paul calls after him. “Flake, come back and we can talk!”

Flake’s heart clenches. Genuine hurt replaces the acidic anxiety. He grabs his pack of cigarettes from his coat hanging by the door and shoves out onto the small back porch. His hands are trembling as he snaps the backdoor shut, plucks out a cigarette, and lights up with a hand cupped around the flame, his long hair curtaining his weary face. He feels like he can’t breathe. Smoking may not be the best method of coping with what just happened. Stupid. Fucking _stupid._ All of this.

He coughs twice as he lets the first inhale expel from his tightened lungs in a cloud of smoke. He drops onto one of the two chairs placed by the small table. Bringing his legs up, he presses his knees to his sternum, feet propped against the edge of the seat while he takes another drag from his cigarette. What Paul said lingers like fog in his mind. _Running as always._ Flake is a creature of habit. It’s difficult to reprogram himself, to negate the innate response of his body and mind. He was walking out of that door before he could even consider how to respond, what course of action to take that would result in the most beneficial outcome. An ingrained sense of choosing the _flight_ path. He always _flies,_ he never stays and _fights,_ and he’s sick of it. He’s sick of himself.

Grinding the pad of his thumb into his eye socket, Flake lets out a deep exhale, his slender torso deflating with it. The cool night air has a layer of goosebumps brewing on his skin. Maybe he should’ve grabbed his coat, along with the cigarettes. Too late now. He’s not going back in there until he’s regathered the courage he needlessly spent on saying such a thing to the other man.

Refusing to simmer in these thoughts any longer, Flake refocuses on the view of the night sky. He forces himself to think of something that soothes him. He recalls Till giving him a lesson on basket weaving back around ’98. Years after he abandoned the skill. Flake was horrible at it. Till was a master. Flake was just fine with watching him craft something rudimentary, something easy to follow for Flake’s sake. And yet, there was a gracefulness in those big hands, creating something like that. Something so simple, yet so beautiful and passionate. Flake stares distantly at the stars and wonders what Till’s up to.

The door slides open. Flake’s stomach twists. He peeks over past his hair to see Paul standing there, looking at him with an expressionless face.

“Come inside, and we’ll talk.”

“…I’d rather not,” Flake mutters. Paul drums his fingers against the door frame.

“Why?”

“Because I’m still feeling defensive.”

“Then just listen to me.”

Paul shuts the door with a scrape and joins him on the back porch. He drops into the other chair and sighs. Flake doesn’t look at him. He stares at his cigarette, watching the embers glow from between his broad fingers. He feels pathetic. Paul is tapping his fingertips along the dusty glass of the table between them, arm draped along its surface. He speaks lowly, voice very controlled.

“I can’t read your mind,” he says, “Considering physical intimacy is the method that has worked nearly every time, you can’t blame me for using the same approach. I care about you, Flake. If you want to talk instead, we can talk. If you want me to leave you alone, I can leave you alone. Just tell me.”

Flake sits in silence. He tries to regather his thoughts, to think of something _right_ to say. He remains sitting there, hunched over and curled up, nervously flicking his cigarette until the embers break apart and fall to the floor of the porch. His long hair shrouds his face from Paul’s gaze.

“Why do I have to feel better?” he answers finally, “Let me be miserable.”

“You can be miserable,” Paul says, “But you know I would at least try.”

He pauses, expelling a sigh that sounds so genuine in its exhaustion, Flake can’t help but peek at him. Paul is drawing in the dust on the table—thinking. His face is tight with concentration, contemplation. Flake notices that he’s keeping his gaze down, focused on the tabletop. Maybe to spare Flake that additional layer of pressure, from the weight of a stare.

Paul continues a moment later, his deep voice smooth with integrity and meaningfulness, “If this is about Jenny, it will work out. This time, don’t run, Flake. Talk to her. Make promises that you can uphold. She would help you, you know. She isn’t just dropping this ultimatum on your lap and saying ‘deal with it’, she’s giving you a choice. No matter what it is, she won’t let you handle it alone. You know that.”

Silence hangs between them for a minute. Flake lets the words absorb into himself. Paul continues drawing in the dust.

“It’s just… Difficult,” Flake says quietly, ineloquently, dropping his gaze to his feet, arms tightening around his curled legs. He’s beginning to shiver from the evening chill. He brings his cigarette to his lips and takes a drag. Paul makes a low noise of acknowledgment.

“It is,” he agrees, “I think you should figure out what you’re going to do now.”

“What are my options?” Flake wryly jokes, glancing at the other man again. Paul finally meets his gaze and smiles faintly. He shrugs.

“You could ask me to leave, and call Jenny. You could allow me to stay, if you still want my company.”

Flake snorts.

“That’s it? What if I want to be alone, and not deal with it yet?”

Paul moves to stand with a creak of the chair. Flake watches him lace his fingers behind his back and arch his arms behind himself, his shoulders popping. He grunts along with it, sighs, and then shrugs while smiling at Flake.

“Then you can be alone. Would you rather wallow in misery, or welcome distraction? You know, when you’re in a good mood, you’re more courageous. I think it could help you face it head on.”

Flake nods solemnly, quietly, ducking his head. Nose running from the cold, Flake sniffles. He puts his cigarette out in the ash tray on the table and looks up at Paul with a particularly vulnerable look in his blue eyes, his jaw clenched.

“Can you make some cocoa?”

Paul snorts, amused. He nods.

“Hot or cold?”

“Hot! I’m cold enough,” Flake grumbles, now rubbing at his trembling biceps. He sniffles again, wiping his nose off on his wrist. Paul smiles.

“Come inside then, idiot.”

He turns to the door, pulls it open, and steps inside the house again. Flake huffs a dry laugh to himself. He unravels his folded body from the too-small chair and rises. Wearing only sweatpants, Flake is eager to shuffle back inside, escaping the bite of the cold night air.

It’s significantly warmer within the living room. Flake shuts the door behind himself. He sees Paul in the kitchen, pulling two mugs from the cabinet. The distant sound of _Kill Bill_ can be heard from the bedroom.

Flake enters the kitchen to assist the other man in the rather easy task of making them both hot cocoa. Paul welcomes him with a quiet smile. Nothing else is said.

Soon enough, they’re arranged in the living room, the mugs placed upon coasters. Flake is curled up into a self-comforting ball again, with a blanket wound tightly around himself. Paul is sitting at the other end, giving him space. He has the TV remote in one hand, and a bulky controller to Flake’s original Xbox in the other. (Naturally, the Xbox was a gift for Flake’s daughter from sweet uncle Paul himself, but evidently, it was a clever, strategic maneuver to use it himself when visiting). The third installment of _Doom_ loads up on the large box TV.

Flake withholds his comment on how silly this is. First, their brief dissension, and now Paul is playing on his daughter’s Xbox. Whatever. Flake has learned by now to just go with the flow when it comes to Paul. He doesn’t speak, he merely watches as the other man picks up on his last save—from two months ago.

Silence lingers, pierced by the sound effects of the video game and Paul’s occasional comment, differing between frustrated and amused. Flake never opens his mouth. He appreciates that Paul doesn’t pressure him to. For nearly half an hour, it lingers like this. Flake has downed the entirety of his hot cocoa by then, sufficiently warmed up in his bundled form under the blanket. Paul has only taken one drink of his, and hasn’t touched it since.

“I changed my mind,” Flake announces soon after the half-hour mark. Paul pauses the game and looks at him, giving him his undivided attention. The gesture flusters Flake. Blushing, Flake flicks his tongue between his lips and lets out a breath. Damn it. Paul knows exactly what this does to him—watching him closely with those knowing gray eyes. Anxious, embarrassed sweat bursts forth on his hairline.

“I wo-would like it if you kissed me,” he stammers. His face is burning now. Paul’s patient gaze trained on him is throwing him off. Flake hates how even now, decades later, he still struggles with expressing his wants with Paul. But… At least he spit it out without Paul having to drag it from within him. That shows _some_ progress. Flake still thinks he’s chickenshit though.

A pursed, fond smile blooms on Paul’s boyish face. He nods in one long, enthusiastic bob of his head. It’s successful in its obvious intent; Flake represses a grin, the apples of his cheeks accentuated. Paul sets down the Xbox controller and dramatically scoots his way over to Flake, jostling the entire damn couch. Flake guffaws at that, unraveling his curled up body, pushing the blanket off of himself, and complains weakly, “Paul, stop being stupid!”

“Yes, yes, you’re very right,” Paul begins in a lowered, gruff voice, brow furrowing with blatant mockery as he drapes his arm around Flake’s shoulders, pulling him closer, “This is incredibly serious. No silliness allowed.”

Before Flake can even respond, Paul grins and reaches up to gently take off his wire-framed glasses. Flake swallows thickly, eyes widened. Leaning over towards the coffee table, taking Flake along with him, Paul sets his glasses down, and then scoots up closer to the other man. Their sides are now aligned, flush together. Flake’s entire body bursts with a heat. He watches Paul closely, lips pressed, bashfulness in his eyes. Paul searches his face.

Releasing a pent breath from his lungs through his nose, Flake relaxes his tightened mouth, gazing into Paul’s expectant eyes. Unspoken permission. Paul’s smile returns, simple and pleased in its nature. He then leans in with an angling of his head. Flake’s insides seize. He watches his handsome face as he closes the distance to kiss him. Their mouths firmly meet, Paul’s nose pressed to his cheek. Flake lets his eyes roll shut, his brow furrowing out of mere habit. He raises a hand to gently, shyly cup the side of Paul’s face, thumb on his cheek, fingers cradling the back of his head, feeling the coarseness of his buzzed hair.

Paul’s lips are heart-crushingly _tender_ in the way they kiss him. He always had pretty lips—Flake often stared at them, even back when they were just teenagers. Sucking on a cigarette, wrapped around the rim of a bottle, rapidly moving along with the whips of his words. Locked with the lips of another person, across the length of a room during a rowdy, wild party, while Flake watched voyeuristically, enviously.

And now, they’re lovingly pursing against his own. Like earlier, Paul’s bottom lip is kissing at the skin just under Flake’s mouth, but in a much more modest manner. Slow and gentle, he repeatedly mashes his lips against Flake’s. Absorbed in the kiss, Flake distantly moves his hand from Paul’s cheek. He runs it down from his shoulder, broad fingers stroking across the sleeve of his shirt, only to end up on the warm, freckled skin of his muscular bicep. In return, Paul reciprocates the touch: he cups Flake’s cheek, fingers in his long hair, twisting lovingly through the dark locks. He clutches at him, pulling him impossibly closer. Flake takes in a shuddering breath, momentarily breaking his mouth from Paul’s to do so as he shifts closer to the older man. Paul immediately leans back in and crushes their mouths together once Flake stills.

The warmth stemming from Flake’s face spreads. He feels it birthing in his core, expanding and expanding to tingle in his fingers, to steadily grow in his belly. His broad hand squeezes firmly around Paul’s tattooed bicep, brow furrowing as said man begins kissing him with a greater fire, mashing his mouth against Flake’s with passion. Paul’s fingers curl into his hair, disheveling it, thumb pressing into his cheek, as if to ground him.

Flake can’t withhold the moan that crawls up from his throat to emerge muffled under Paul’s devouring kiss. Paul hums in return and it sends a jolt of heat right into Flake’s belly. Blood rockets south. His cock stiffens, caught under the soft fabric of his sweatpants. Flake brings his other hand up to shakily slip it under Paul’s black shirt, fingers fanning out across the muscular plane of his belly. His skin is hot. Paul angles his head to deepen the kiss. He breaches the seam of Flake’s wet lips with his tongue and Flake eagerly accommodates it. Their tongues begin to move with the overlapping crush of their lips. Flake is breathing heavily into it, harsh ins and outs through his nose. Paul continues clutching at his hair, cradling his head, pulling him in like he couldn’t get enough.

Paul’s shirt rides up against Flake’s wrist as his touch rises. Further and further, until he’s squeezing at one of Paul’s pecs, pinching a hard nipple between his curled forefinger and thumb. It surprises him when Paul grunts and then detaches, breaking the kiss. Panting, Flake licks his swollen lips and searches Paul’s flushed face. Paul takes in a breath, huffs a laugh, and then pecks him with finality—Flake returns it, as brief as it had been.

Gently, Paul grasps Flake by the wrist and slowly pulls his hand out from under his shirt. Flake, understanding, strokes his hand over Paul’s side instead, atop his shirt. Further surprising the younger man, Paul reaches up to smooth a thumb across his brow, relaxing his furrowed eyebrows. Flake releases the tension in his face.

“A kiss will do,” Paul murmurs, giving him a warm smile. Flake, as much as he likes the idea of Paul undressing him and kissing him elsewhere, has to agree. Despite the state of his half-hard cock, Flake doesn’t want to take it further, based on moral grounds. He nods, face tightening a little bit once again.

Before anything more could be said, he draws his lean, muscular arms around Paul’s back. Paul smiles and moves to accommodate it, angling his body to hug him. Flake nuzzles into the warmth of his shoulder and neck, eyes closing. He squeezes his soft body in his embrace. Paul hugs him tightly in return, one hand resting at the center of his shoulder blades, fingers tangling gently in his russet brown locks.

For a long, comforting minute, they hold each other. Flake doesn’t move, he simply breathes Paul in, nose tucked into the crevice where shoulder meets his neck, his hair fanned out across Paul’s bicep. Paul’s legs are curled up against his own, knee pressing into his thigh.

“I’ll call her,” Flake mumbles into his shoulder a moment later, releasing a deep exhale. Paul nods, squeezes him once more, and then pulls back to plant a loud, loving kiss against his temple.

“I’ll go on a walk,” he offers, sitting back to search in Flake’s warm blue eyes. Flake smiles faintly in a way that is incredibly Flake-like—very subtle but expressive in his thankfulness. He nods, reaching up to tuck his hair behind a big ear.

“Just make sure you come back…” he says weakly, blushing again. Paul gazes at him fondly. He nods. Flake watches him, glancing between Paul’s understanding eyes, his own smile curling into something loving. He reaches out to run a fingertip along Paul’s smiling lips. Paul smooches it, earning a broader grin from Flake, and then moves to stand with a grunt. Hands resting limply in his lap, Flake watches him tug on his boots, snatch his coat from the hook by the door, and step out. Then, after sitting there contemplatively, determinedly stamping down on his anxiety, Flake reaches out to grab his flip phone from the coffee table.

**Author's Note:**

> P.S. Paul said his favorite movie is Kill Bill, from a fan questionnaire in 2005.
> 
> babypaulchen.tumblr.com


End file.
